by Fiona Grace
Ali tapped her foot. This man was a rambler, and she had no patience for his irrelevant sides.
“Anyway,” he continued. “My wife and I went out to a restaurant, Los Angeles way, and were served by Piper. She seemed stressed, sad. We got to talking and she said she was being evicted. She was trying to get as close to Hollywood as possible, aspirations to be a star, but she couldn’t afford her apartment anymore. Well, the wife kicked me under the table. And it felt a bit like divine intervention, you know? I couldn’t pay her wages, but I could give her room and board. She agreed to come work for us.”
“Wow,” Ali said, utterly stunned by the similarity of his story to hers. “That’s like fate, or something?”
He chuckled. “Oh, it was fate all right. Fate is a cruel mistress, as they say. Piper was a disaster.”
This was just getting more and more compelling. If she’d been sitting, Ali would be at the edge of her seat. She was as enthralled by the popcorn seller’s history with Piper as she had been with Teddy’s Cilla Martin story. “What happened?” she asked.
“She’d burn the corn. Burn herself! Burn the customers. Seriously, if there was anything that could go wrong, it would go wrong. She was like an angel of bad luck. We had to let her go by the end of the summer. She was costing us a fortune.”
Poor Piper, Ali thought. No wonder she didn’t want to tell Ali about her prior experience in Willow Bay. It sounded like it had been very stressful, and to get kicked out and lose her job must’ve been very traumatic.
Then Ali had a sudden thought. If Piper had been working in Willow Bay during the summer last year, had she had a run-in with Brandon Lennox?
“Did you guys get a visit from Brandon Lennox last year?” Ali asked.
“Oh yeah. We certainly could’ve done without that. In fact, I’d say that was probably the nail in the coffin when it came to Piper working for us. It really was the catalyst. She acted like a simpering idiot when he was around, encouraging him and laughing at his dumb antics. I mean there’s pranks, and then there’s almost burning down a man’s entire business.”
Ali could hardly believe what she was hearing. Piper and Brandon had met before? Not only had they met, but Brandon’s antics had cost her her home in Willow Bay, her job, and maybe even her chance to become a star?
A horrible feeling swept over Ali. Piper had plenty of reasons to hold a grudge against Brandon Lennox. She’d purposefully never mentioned having met him before and she’d been alone with the ingredients. Maybe her employee was his killer after all, and there’d been nothing accidental about it!
She thought back to the moment of Brandon’s death. Piper had seemed distraught. Ali had accepted it at face value, but now, on second thought, she wondered if it had all been an act. Piper was an aspiring actress, after all. She knew how to turn her emotions on and off. She knew how to cry on cue…
Ali’s heart was slamming in her chest as she excused herself from the pizzeria and grabbed her cell phone. She had to speak to Piper, find out what the deal really was between her young employee and the man who’d dropped down dead in her bakery.
“Ali?” Piper asked as she picked up the phone. There was lots of noise in the background.
“Where are you?” Ali asked.
“Best Hot Dogs,” Piper replied. “You sent me here, remember? Seth said I could do some temporary work here while the bakery is closed. I’m on onion frying duty.”
She sounded happy, but Ali felt a wave of dread rush through her. She was the one who’d sent Piper to Seth’s! Had she inadvertently sent him a murderer?
“I’m going to come and see you,” Ali said. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in a minute.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Ali hurried along the boardwalk, full of nerves, and entered Best Hot Dogs.
“Ali?” Seth said, as he spotted her rushing toward him. “Are you okay?”
“Where’s Piper?” she asked immediately. There was no time for pleasantries.
“Out back,” Seth replied, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. He frowned. “Do you need her?”
“No, actually,” Ali said, quickly. “I need you to help me distract her.”
Seth’s dark brows drew even closer together. “What? Why?” he questioned. “What’s going on?”
From where she was working at the till, Carys cast her eyes over to Ali, no doubt intrigued by her agitated state. Seth, too, seemed concerned to see Ali standing in front of him in a flap.
“I… I can’t explain,” Ali explained rapidly. “But I have a hunch. And I hope to God it’s not right. But to know that, I need to check something first.”
Seth gave his head a small, exasperated shake. Ali couldn’t blame him. She was a ball of nervous energy and was being super evasive about it.
“Fine,” he said, sighing in defeat. “What do you need me to do?”
Ali faltered. She’d been expecting more push back from him. She’d expected a few more questions, at the very least. But Seth seemed to want to help her without even asking twice why. Just like during their date, when he’d offered her his kitchen. She was surprised by how accommodating Seth really was, especially considering how Nate these days only seemed to care about her when it suited him.
She snapped back to the moment and addressed Seth. “I need you to distract her.”
He nodded. “I’ll give her a task.”
“No,” Ali said, resting a hand on his arm. “She might still wander in. I need an actual diversion.”
Seth’s confused frown deepened. Then he clicked his fingers. “I have an idea.”
Ali watched, worrying her hands in front of her with agitation, as Seth went around the restaurant collecting up all the dirty plates. Then he carried them past her and into the kitchen.
A moment later, there came a horrified screech. Piper came flying out of the kitchen, mustard and ketchup splattered on her face and in her hair. She went straight through the adjacent restroom door, not even noticing Ali.
Seth reappeared, shaking his head. “That did not feel good.”
“It was genius,” Ali told him. There was nothing that mattered more to Piper than her appearance. She’d be in the bathroom for hours now fixing up her makeup. “Okay, where’s Piper’s bag?”
Seth pointed to the hooks hanging in the hallway. Ali spotted Piper’s bright red purse and rushed over to get it. She sat down in one of the dark green leather booths and, with a terrible feeling of guilt and shame, unzipped the zipper.
“Ali…” Seth said, nervously, hovering beside her. “What are you doing?”
She heard the judgment in his voice, and accepted it. She was judging herself too. Hating herself, in fact, for violating Piper’s privacy. But there was so much at stake. A man was dead, murdered, and Piper may very well have been responsible.
“I’m looking for something,” she told him, hating how morally dubious she was being.
“What?” Seth pressed.
Ali paused and glanced up at him. “Poison…” she confessed.
Seth’s eyebrows shot up. “Poison?” he echoed, sounding shocked. He glanced furtively toward the restroom. “You don’t think Piper—?”
“—I have reason to suspect her,” Ali said, her chest sinking from the burden of her suspicion.
She turned her attention back to Piper’s bag, rifling through bits of paper and lip glosses and a myriad of random flyers from different boardwalk eateries. Her purse was as disorganized as one would expect from Piper, and so far, Ali had found nothing incriminating inside the jumbled mess. It only made her feel even worse about what she was doing. If she was wrong about this and was rummaging in Piper’s bag without justification, it would be unforgivable.
“Why do you suspect her?” Seth asked, firing another question at her.
He was getting increasingly fidgety. Ali guessed it was either because he couldn’t picture the sweet, hapless Piper as a cold-blooded killer, making Ali’s behavior unjus
tifiable, or because he’d realized there was a murderer in his restroom, one whose MO involved poison, one who’d been chopping his onions and prepping his ingredients all morning…
“She has more motive than anyone else I’ve met to want Brandon dead,” Ali explained.
“What motive?” Seth shot back without missing a beat.
“Revenge,” was all Ali would say.
Just then, she spotted something that made her blood run cold. Right at the bottom of Piper’s back was a small orange plastic pill container. Ali’s heart slammed into her ribs as she pulled it out of the bag and held it up to Seth. His eyes widened with shock and disbelief.
“I think we might’ve found our culprit,” Ali said.
She turned the container around in her hand to see what was written on the label. Just as her eyes found the information she was looking for—citalopram—the bathroom door opened and Piper came out.
Ali realized her mistake too late. Piper wasn’t carrying poison, but prescription anti-anxiety meds! The girl wasn’t a killer at all.
Piper was halfway through speaking to Carys—“do you have a beauty blender I could borrow”—when she spotted Ali at the booth. “Oh, Ali. Hey. What are you…”
Her voice cut out as she realized what Ali was holding. Her gaze went from the bottle of meds in Ali’s hands to her bright red purse sitting wide open on the table in front of her. The color drained from her face.
“Ali?” she said, in a small, hurt voice. “What are you doing?”
“Piper, I’m sorry,” Ali said. She shoved the pills back when she’d found them, but it was no use. The damage was done.
Tears filled Piper’s eyes. She looked mortified. She snatched her purse off the table. “That’s my stuff!” she squealed, as she made several furtive, paranoid glances over her shoulder. “And now everyone knows…”
Ali stood from the booth. “Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Shh!” Piper cried. She clutched the purse to her chest, and tears plopped from her eyes. “Stop embarrassing me! What were you even doing with my stuff?”
“I’m sorry,” Ali said, lamely feeling herself deflate like a balloon. She didn’t want to admit that she’d suspected Piper. It would only make a bad situation all the worse.
Piper looked over to Seth, her bag held in her arms like a baby, ketchup in her hair, and mascara tears on her face. “May I please leave early today?” she said, in a voice that sounded like she’d summoned all her courage.
“Of—of course,” Seth said, in a sad, guilty voice, his gaze falling from hers quickly.
“Thank you,” Piper said, in a clipped tone. Then with a humph, she turned on her heel, her chin held up, and walked the length of the restaurant through the exit. The moment the door closed, she broke into a run and disappeared quickly from sight.
Ali sank back into the booth, filled with guilt and shame. She’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
“Eat something,” Seth said as he slid into the seat opposite her and placed a hot dog on the table. “You look exhausted.”
Ali stared at the glistening hot dog, her stomach roiling with nausea. She felt awful. More awful than she had when Otis revealed he was cheating on her. Because this time, she was the one at fault.
Ali took a bite. The taste of perfectly cooked pork and spicy Asian flavors danced across her taste buds. “Bahn-mi style hot dog,” she murmured, remembering her earlier conversation with Hannah. If it weren’t for the swirling pit of guilt at the bottom of her stomach, she would’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Instead, she placed it back on the plate. “I can’t believe I did that to Piper.”
“You made a mistake,” Seth said, reassuringly. “That’s all. You’re under a lot of pressure. She’ll understand once she’s had time to cool off.”
Ali pressed her lips together. She tried to let Seth’s words comfort her, but they only just took off the edge of the deep, dark depression she’d jumped headfirst into.
“I just don’t know what to do,” she confessed. “I’ve exhausted all my leads. I’ve been to every vendor on the boardwalk Brandon stopped at. They all either have alibis or lack motive. I really thought Piper might’ve been the killer.”
Seth gave her a sympathetic smile. “Stop beating yourself up. Maybe you just need to approach the whole thing differently. You can do this, Ali.”
This time, his reassurance did help lift Ali somewhat. For the smallest of moments, hope blossomed in her chest. Then her cell phone started ringing. The name flashing up at her: Mom. Her hope came crashing all the way back down to her toes.
“I’d better get this,” Ali said to Seth.
He nodded. “Take your hot dog with you.”
Ali did. Even though she felt sick to her stomach with dread and anxiety, and knew she’d just be throwing it in the closest trash can, she scooped up the warm hot dog in her spare hand and headed outside.
She answered the call, wedging her phone between her shoulder and ear as she idly strolled along the boardwalk.
“Hey, Mom,” she said into the speaker. “How are you?”
“I’ve just been speaking to Hannah.”
“Oh?” Ali said. That wasn’t a good start.
“She said something about a new launch. Macarons?”
“Yeah…” Ali said, tentatively, unsure where this was going.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were having a launch? I could’ve come to visit you. Support you.”
Ali frowned, perplexed. It hadn’t even occurred to her to invite her mom, or let her in on her business dealings. Her mother hadn’t offered to visit once since she’d moved to Willow Bay, hadn’t taken an interest in Ali’s opening day, hadn’t expressed any desire to know about her apartment or friends here.
“I’m sorry,” Ali said. “It was only a small thing.”
“Small? Really?” her mom replied. “Teddy seemed to think it was this huge deal that would save your business.”
It began to dawn on Ali what was going on. Teddy must’ve been trying to stand up for her, and make out that her macaron launch was more of a thing than it was, trying to get her mom and sister to ease back a bit with their criticisms. Of course, it had backfired, because nothing was simple when it came to Georgia Sweet.
Ali spotted a trash can up ahead and went over to dump her hot dog. “It was just a companion product to the cupcakes,” she explained as she went. “I’m trying to diversify a bit. It wasn’t a huge thing. But I’ll make sure to include you in the future.”
Georgia was silent for a moment. “How did it go then?”
Ali tried not to picture Brandon Lennox lying dead on her bakery floor. “All right,” she mumbled.
She slam dunked the hot dog in the trash can. As she did, a flash of something caught her attention.
She looked over to the street that ran parallel to the boardwalk and saw a big helium balloon catching the sun. The words HAPPY BIRTHDAY were emblazoned across it in bright pink writing. A crowd of kids were standing outside a store just off the boardwalk, one Ali had not noticed before since it wasn’t situated on the boardwalk, but on the side of the road that ran parallel behind it. It must be a tearoom or something quaint like that, because all the kids were dressed up like fairy princesses.
“ALI!” her mother’s voice barked in her ear.
“Huh? What?” Ali said, bringing her attention back to the call.
“You didn’t even hear my question, did you?” Georgia demanded.
“No. Sorry. I got distracted.” Ali looked away from the group of kids and removed the now sweaty phone from where she’d wedged it between her ear and shoulder, swapping it to the other side instead. “What was the question?”
Georgia let out a little displeased huff. “The question was, how long are you planning on staying in Willow Bay?”
Ali didn’t even know where to begin answering that question. “I don’t know.”
“Beyond the summer?”
&
nbsp; “Yes, of course! I’m leasing an apartment. A store. I’ve opened a business. Of course I’m staying beyond the summer.”
“No need to sound so testy,” Georgia continued, sounding testy herself. “That’s why I’m asking! So are you looking at more like six months?”
Ali frowned and shook her head. “Mom. I’m going to be here for the foreseeable future. For years.” She was about to add, “I hope,” but knew it would only open up a can of worms, so she held her tongue.
“Years?” Georgia Sweet cried.
“Yes, Mom. I’m trying to make an actual life for myself here.”
“But you don’t even know the place. It’s not your home.”
“It’s becoming my home,” Ali said, glancing around the boardwalk.
She really meant it. Delaney was a good friend. There was Scruff. Nate. Seth. She had a lot in Willow Bay that she’d not had before. And the thought of losing it all because of Brandon Lennox sat heavily in her stomach.
She looked again at the birthday crowd. If her store had been open rather than commandeered by the police, would they have come to her instead? She could just picture it—birthday parties with happy, smiling kids dressed as superheroes and princesses, all enjoying her macarons. She was determined to get her bakery back so she could make that a reality, and prove to Hannah and her mom once and for all that she was going to make this a success.
“Well,” Georgia continued in her ear. “Just know that as your mother, I will always be here for you as soon as you’ve come to your senses.”
It was just the sort of veiled criticism Ali’s mom was famed for. And it always got right under Ali’s skin.
“I have come to my senses, Mom,” she argued. “I want to be here. It’s where I belong.”
“Darling, you trained for a year under Milo Baptiste. What would he say if he saw you now, slumming it in that hippie beach town? Making cupcakes and macarons for a living!”
Ali ground her teeth. She wanted to say something to defend herself, but her mom was on a roll, and all she could do was listen.